Sergei Ivanovich Grigoryants (, , 12 May 1941 – 14 March 2023) was a

Soviet dissident Soviet dissidents were people who disagreed with certain features of Soviet ideology or with its entirety and who were willing to speak out against them. The term ''dissident'' was used in the Soviet Union (USSR) in the period from the mid-1960s ...

and political prisoner, journalist, literary critic, chairman of the

Glasnost Defense Foundation Glasnost Defense Foundation is a non-profit organization with the stated goals of the defense of journalists, journalism, and freedom of expression in Russian Federation, Russia. Its president is Alexei Simonov, a member of the Moscow Helsinki Gro ...

. He was imprisoned for ten years in Chistopol jail as a political prisoner for anti-Soviet activities, from 1975 to 1980 and then four more years starting in 1983 on similar charges.

Biography

Sergei Grigoryants was born on 12 May 1941 in

Kyiv Kyiv, also Kiev, is the capital and most populous List of cities in Ukraine, city of Ukraine. Located in the north-central part of the country, it straddles both sides of the Dnieper, Dnieper River. As of 1 January 2022, its population was 2, ...

(then Kiev) in the

Ukrainian SSR The Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic, abbreviated as the Ukrainian SSR, UkrSSR, and also known as Soviet Ukraine or just Ukraine, was one of the Republics of the Soviet Union, constituent republics of the Soviet Union from 1922 until 1991. ...

of the

Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

(USSR). He was of Armenian-Ukrainian descent. Grigoryants studied at the

Kyiv Polytechnic Institute The Kyiv Polytechnic Institute ( KPI, ; official full title National Technical University of Ukraine "Igor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute") is a national public technological university in Kyiv, Ukraine. Name In the long period of existenc ...

, the faculty of journalism at the

Moscow State University Moscow State University (MSU), officially M. V. Lomonosov Moscow State University,. is a public university, public research university in Moscow, Russia. The university includes 15 research institutes, 43 faculties, more than 300 departments, a ...

and the

Riga Civil Aviation Engineers Institute The Riga Civil Aviation Engineers Institute (RCAEI) (, ) was an engineering university in the USSR and Latvia. It was founded in 1919 and closed in 1999. Thousands of students graduated from the institute from over 93 countries. The institute ha ...

(at the time all these cities were located inside the

USSR The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

). In 1975, Grigoryants was arrested by the

KGB The Committee for State Security (, ), abbreviated as KGB (, ; ) was the main security agency of the Soviet Union from 1954 to 1991. It was the direct successor of preceding Soviet secret police agencies including the Cheka, Joint State Polit ...

and sentenced to five years in prison for

anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda Anti-Soviet agitation and propaganda (ASA) () was a criminal offence in the Soviet Union. Initially, the term was interchangeably used with counter-revolutionary agitation. The latter term was in use immediately after the October Revolution of 1917 ...

. After his release in 1982, he circulated in

samizdat Samizdat (, , ) was a form of dissident activity across the Eastern Bloc in which individuals reproduced censored and underground makeshift publications, often by hand, and passed the documents from reader to reader. The practice of manual rep ...

information on human rights violations in the Soviet Union as editor of the periodical '' Bulletin V.'' For this activity, he was again arrested in 1984 and sentenced to ten years of strict regime labor camp. After the beginning of

General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union The General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. was the Party leader, leader of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU). From 1924 until the dissolution of the Soviet Union, country's dissoluti ...

Mikhail Gorbachev Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev (2 March 1931 – 30 August 2022) was a Soviet and Russian politician who served as the last leader of the Soviet Union from 1985 to dissolution of the Soviet Union, the country's dissolution in 1991. He served a ...

perestroika ''Perestroika'' ( ; rus, перестройка, r=perestrojka, p=pʲɪrʲɪˈstrojkə, a=ru-perestroika.ogg, links=no) was a political reform movement within the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU) during the late 1980s, widely associ ...

, he was released in 1987 under amnesty. He immediately resumed his human rights activities and proceeded to publish ''Glasnost'' magazine, criticizing the communist system. In May 1989 Grigoryants created and headed the union of independent journalists, which included a number of journalists representing independent (samizdat) printed in the USSR. In 1989, Grigoryants was awarded

Golden Pen of Freedom Award The Golden Pen of Freedom Award is an annual international journalism award established in 1961, given by the World Association of Newspapers to individuals or organisations. The stated purpose of the award is "to recognise the outstanding action, ...

of the

World Association of Newspapers The World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers (WAN-IFRA) is a non-profit, non-governmental organization made up of 76 national newspaper associations, 12 news agencies, 10 regional press organisations, and many individual newspaper e ...

. In the 1990s he regularly voiced his demands for

lustration Lustration in Central and Eastern Europe is the official public procedure of scrutinizing a public official or a candidate for public office in terms of their history as a witting confidential collaborator (informant) of relevant former commun ...

, filed a lawsuit against the KGB, demanded to return his confiscated archive. Grigoryants was in opposition to

Russian President The president of Russia, officially the president of the Russian Federation (), is the executive head of state of Russia. The president is the chair of the Federal State Council and the supreme commander-in-chief of the Russian Armed Forces. I ...

Vladimir Putin Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin (born 7 October 1952) is a Russian politician and former intelligence officer who has served as President of Russia since 2012, having previously served from 2000 to 2008. Putin also served as Prime Minister of Ru ...

's policies, in particular, he expressed protests against the infringement of democratic freedoms in

Russia Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...

and criticized the government for the war in

Chechnya Chechnya, officially the Chechen Republic, is a Republics of Russia, republic of Russia. It is situated in the North Caucasus of Eastern Europe, between the Caspian Sea and Black Sea. The republic forms a part of the North Caucasian Federa ...

. In 2014, Grigoryants condemned Russian aggression against

Ukraine Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the List of European countries by area, second-largest country in Europe after Russia, which Russia–Ukraine border, borders it to the east and northeast. Ukraine also borders Belarus to the nor ...

and even filed a complaint to the

International Court of Justice The International Court of Justice (ICJ; , CIJ), or colloquially the World Court, is the only international court that Adjudication, adjudicates general disputes between nations, and gives advisory opinions on International law, internation ...

demanding President Putin's trial. Grigoryants died the age of 82 on 14 March 2023. The place and cause of death, as well as the date and place of the funeral, were not reported.

References

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Biography

References

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Further reading